As you’ve probably heard, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot dead by 28-year-old George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. The white shooter had called 911 to complain that a black guy was walking around his neighborhood, then opened fire.

There has been some dispute about what preceded the killing: An unnamed witness claims the 140-lb. Martin physically attacked the 240-lb. Zimmerman; no one knows for sure whether this happened before or after Martin saw the stranger coming at him with a gun.

This has expectedly enraged a lot of people who consider it one more in a long series of incidents in which white people have killed black people for nothing and gotten away with it.

Rightbloggers were enraged too — that anyone felt sorry for the dead black kid rather than for the live white killer.

Their main argument was: Why does a white guy killing a black guy and getting away with it make you libtards think of racism?

Neil Boortz admitted that “as things look now,” it seemed as if Zimmerman were “a law enforcement wannabe who was destined to end up in a controversy like this.” He added that “Trayvon Martin’s family says that they don’t believe that their son would have been killed if it were not for the color of his skin. I believe they’re right. ”

But just because he wouldn’t have been killed if he weren’t black, said Boortz, didn’t mean racism was involved.

“People scream racism any time there is a negative interaction between a black and a white person,” said Boortz. “There is no evidence that I’ve seen here which indicates that Zimmerman harbored a belief in the genetic superiority of one race or another… Perhaps Zimmerman just doesn’t like black people, though there is not yet any evidence of that…”

Besides, said Boortz, “the entire situation, as you would expect, is now being used by various race pimps and organizations to grab a little publicity for themselves while agitating the crowd and muddying the issue. Foremost among these people is that race-baiting creep from New York City Al Sharpton. The memory of Trayvon Martin, by all accounts an exemplary young man, is only soiled by the presence of Sharpton.”

There you go: Martin was killed because, in Boortz’ words, he was black, but the real insult to Martin is that Al Sharpton complained about it.

Some of the brethren asserted that Zimmerman wasn’t really white. (To be fair, from photographs Zimmerman could be taken for Hispanic, or Italian-American.)

“Accused killer ‘spanish-speaking minority with many black family members and friends,'” headlined the Drudge Report. “Trayvon Martin Shooter George Zimmerman Is Hispanic Member Of Black/Hispanic Family,” said Pat Dollard.

Dan McLaughlin of RedState also called Zimmerman “a Hispanic man,” but couldn’t leave it at that: He yelled that liberals were “still complaining, a quarter century later” about the Willie Horton ads (apparently because Michael Kinsley mentioned them once), then challenged his readers: “If the point is to use crime stories to dramatize real world concerns,” he said, “what about a story that affects a lot more people than the fairness and competence of the Sanford, Florida police department: incursions into the U.S. by Mexican drug cartels?”

Oh, and we suppose if we shot you now, that'd be some kind of "hate crime," right? Sheesh.

McLaughlin then repeated a bunch of news items about drug crimes allegedly committed by Mexicans in America and — though most of his citations were from mainstream media sources — accused the mainstream media of trying to cover them up with the Martin story: “The reality is that the Trayvon Martin case is being pushed by left-wing organizations eager to provide a backdrop of racial strife to this year’s elections,” claimed McLaughlin, “a dangerous tactic, given how frequently popular agitation over these kinds of racially divisive stories have led to riots that leave people dead or homeless and local businesses and jobs destroyed.”

Yeah, someone could get hurt — by which he meant victims of imaginary riots, not some black kid who was actually shot to death.

When Zimmerman’s whiteness wasn’t at issue, Martin’s blackness was: Dan Riehl made much of the fact that a picture of Martin “observed in the media… has been lightened, or softened, somehow. Along with other possible alterations, he looks far more, perhaps innocent is the right word…”

“More white” seems to be the phrase Riehl was groping for. Charles Johnson noticed that the darker Martin photo was actually a photograph of a photograph, which might explain its relative darkness. Johnson also reproduced some deranged Twitter responses to his discovery by Riehl himself (e.g., “Fact is, if [Johnson] walked down the street I grew up on w his ponytail. The white kids and blacks kidz would’ve kicked his ass 2gether”).

Reihl responded with a post attacking “the race-based ignorance of so many blacks I’m seeing in attacking me… blacks especially should feel insulted and upset at the media, including the AP – not me.”

Really? Why should blacks be mad at the outlets that ran the photo, rather than at the guy who said the lighter picture made Martin look “far more, perhaps innocent” (and who accused them of “race-based ignorance”)? Because the AP, by running the photo, “appears to be saying to them, lighter is better, while darker is bad,” explained Riehl, “and they aren’t even able to see that, the pre-judgment and ignorance on display is just sad.”

“It’s sad to see so many black Americans still falling for it after so many decades,” further lamented Riehl in his more-in-sorrow-than-in-racism mode. “Their minds haven’t been freed, all that’s changed is the owners of the plantation. Too many would be black leaders are too happy to lead them down a path through a cotton field of ignorance and hate ending at the ballot box, before just going on and on with no real end in sight.”

Amazingly, African-Americans rallied for the fallen Martin instead of for their true friend, Dan Riehl. Yet the brave Riehl soldiered on for racial harmony, posting shortly thereafter, under the curious headline “The Irony Of Obama: He May Have Freed Whites, More Than Blacks,” this racial outreach:

“There is an interesting irony playing out underneath this whole Martin, Zimmerman tragedy the media — and more importantly, Obama — now seems intent on making into a national event… last time I looked, there’s a black guy in the White House. You want me to cry and feel sorry for you because America is such a racist country, or I need to explore some hidden racism deep within myself? Get over it, loser…”

That’s one righteous Caucasian, right there, still waiting resentfully for his ghetto pass.

Other rightbloggers thought the real outrage in the Trayvon Martin case was that famous black people (or, in rightblogger lingo, race pimps) were upset by it.

In response to Jesse Jackson’s involvement, RedState diarist gawken raved about “the lynching of Martin’s killer” and “Al Sharpton and the usual crew of race pimps.” He also triumphantly quoted Jackson’s famous statement that “there is nothing more painful to me at this stage of my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved,” which he apparently took to mean that Jackson would approve of blowing Martin away if he weren’t such a hypocrite.

“Jesse Jackson Uses Trayvon Martin’s Death to Restore the Plantation,” said Howard Nemerov at PJ Tatler. (To those confused by that headline, see the Rightblogger Glossary, Page 42, “liberal plantation.”) “Curiously,” added Nemerov, “Jackson didn’t protest when Black, self-employed roofing contractor Hygens Labidou defended himself against two white racists who called him a ‘N—r’ while trying to pull him from his truck and murder him.”

Umm — what? There was a racist crime in protest of which Nemerov would have welcomed Jesse Jackson? Don’t be silly — Nemerov was just trying to make a point:

“Labidou’s story is important,” said Nemerov, “because Sanford police interviewed a witness who reported that Martin was on top of Zimmerman and beating Zimmerman when the shooting occurred. Curiously, Jackson didn’t mention this even though he claims he wants justice, which used to mean innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt… Meet the new Uncle Tom: Jesse Jackson.”

To recap: One of Labidou’s two assailants, unlike Martin, was armed with a knife. And Labidou, unlike Zimmerman so far, was charged with a crime. Other than that, totally the same thing. (Update: Our mistake — Labidou wasn’t charged; one of his assailants was, for causing his partner’s death in commission of the assault on Labidou.)

Inevitably President Obama made a statement about the case that was relatively anodyne (“Tragedy… If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” etc); also inevitably, this enraged the belligerati.

At American Thinker Rick Moran complained, “this is the second racial incident in which Obama has jumped the gun and either criticized ‘stupid’ police as he did in the Gates controversy, or local authorities as he did last Friday in the Trayvon Martin tragedy.” In the Henry Louis Gates case, longtime readers will recall, the cops confronted a black guy in his own home because they assumed, the house being nice, that he had to be a burglar, and when he protested they arrested him.

Moran also accused Obama of “essentially calling for the shooter to be arrested and convicted,” which bizarre accusation was not borne out by anything Obama said — which became more obvious when Moran added a “clarification” to his post in which he didn’t apologize or back off in any way, but instead insisted “only little children and liberals believe that bringing DoJ into this incendiary local matter doesn’t guarantee Zimmerman’s eventual arrest and conviction for…something.”

Moran then raved that “hysteria ginned up over this horrible incident will ensure that authorities will shape their investigation to satisfy the howling mob… Like it’s never happened before? Just ask Sacco and Vanzetti.” This is probably the first time a rightblogger has asserted the innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti, but as we’ve seen, racial issues can drive these people to extremities.

Many just said the hell with it and went for the “blacks are criminals” argument.

“Murder is largely an intraracial crime,” said Scott Johnson of Power Line. “Almost all murders of blacks are committed by other blacks… If race hustlers like Al Sharpton really had the interests of the black community at heart, they would devote themselves to doing everything in their power to have violent black criminals separated from the community of law-abiding black citizens.”

So, in Johnson’s view, Martin’s killing is just an excuse black people are using to draw attention away from their own crimes against themselves. Johnson used as an example a black guy who killed three black people; at American Thinker, Michael Filozof went him one better and used the example of a black guy who killed a white guy. Then he talked about Reginald Denny and O.J. Simpson, and how “the truth of the matter is that ‘civil rights’ cases are often little more than reverse lynch mobs… one-third of rapes committed against white women (approximately 37,000) were perpetrated by blacks…”

You get the picture.

This isn’t even getting into what the commenters and message-board contributors are saying. We got a taste of that sort of thing last July, when we wrote about rightbloggers’ factually challenged story about a black crime wave engulfing America — prompting a huge wave of hostile commenters to send in their racial slurs (e.g., “Only members of the Negro Worshiping Church of Liberaldom could remain steadfastly loyal to their black gods despite the white genocide going on around them,” “Blacks are cowards, they gang up in packs, and attack weak helpless and elderly victims, but when they are alone they are total chickenshits,” etc).

Give those guys some credit, though — at least they weren’t trying to pretend that they weren’t racist.